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I woke up early today to help escort my friend Tim. He concocted a homegrown Iron Man triathlon, swimming 2.4 miles over at Raponda, then a 112 mile bike ride through three states, and finally a marathon 26.2 mile run. All on his own, which has to be the most difficult thing to do!

I was able to stay for half of his swim before leaving for work. Tim was smooth in the water and had a lot of friends to help - Melissal, Rachel (fresh off their IM Mount Trebulant in Canada last week), and Rachel's husband were on SUPs, Tim's oldest son kayaked, and Carol swam the whole way.

He finished in just over 14 hours (he had some issues during the run and ended up powerwalking for over half the distance) to a crowd of 50 or more cherring at the finish line at our local HS. A great feat!

I was really tired last night and went to bed early. I slept really well and woke up feeling good this morning. I was anticipating our 16x100s set and honestly had a little dread in the back of my mind as I headed to the pool. Luckily for me Tom said we would not be doing the 16x100s set today. He said we worked our tails off yesterday and he wanted to ease us back in; I could help but think, I wished he had applied this earlier in the week when we did our 16x50s set.

Main sets
6x(100 kick with fins straight into 2x25 underwater with 15 seconds rest at 25 and 30 seconds rest between rounds)
4x50 DPS reducing by 1 each 25 on 1min
4x(100 IM fast on 1:30, 2x50 drill swim in IM order on 1min)
100 easy
50 from a drive afap

Warm down
200 easy

Despite not doing the 16x100s today this was not an easy workout. I kicked on my back on the set with fins and went for it on the first 100 and went :52 and then tried to hold this time throughout the 100s kick portion. On the last 2 rounds I slipped to :53s. On the underwater I was able to go halfway down the pool on the first 25 and then managed to go underwater on the second 25. on the DPS I was able to drop from 11 strokes to 7 strokes over the set. I was trying to work both my stroke, kick and underwaters as I dropped my stroke count. On the IM sets I went 1:05,1:05,1:04,1:03 and felt tired but strong. I feel like my fly and breast have improved this long course season. I will likely swim some more IMs in some masters meets this scm season. On the 50'from a dive I had a slow and crooked dive but felt fast and Tom called out 23 based on his send off and the clock on the wall. I was pleased with this.

Islet great last night but woke a little stiff and sore. It's always tough getting back into training and this week has been no exception. Once again we are setup for scy.

Warm up
400 free with snorkel
6x50 catchup on :45

Main sets
4x(100 IM on 1:20, 100 kick on 1:40, 50 under water on 1:30)
100 easy
4x(4x25 on 40, round 1 easy DPS, round 2 overkick, round 3 underwater off walls to 15m line, round 4 afap no breathers)
100 easy
8x(partner up with swimmer 1 going 100 fast, while swimmer 2 does vertical dolphin kick with heads out of the water, at the end of the 100 switch)

Warm down
200 easy

I felt pretty stiff on the warm up but did loosen up and caught fire on the IM set going 1:07, 1:05, 1:03, 1:01 on the IMs and held 1:20 on the kick. I breathed 1-2 per length on the 50 and used it as active recovery. I felt good! The 25s I was coming in over 15s until the last round where I went 12s. On the partner set my partner is pretty quick and he started out around 58-59s and we were alternating pretty well but he slipped a little after the first two and to stick to the leaving on the top I had to gradually drop my times as he slowed down. I ended up dropping to :57s and then on the last 2 went :56s. Unlike the 16x100 set we do where we get rest this was especially tough due to the no rest. Time get getting in our case if we hung on the wall for more than a second or two after we finished. This was tough!

* I ripped this exercise off from Erica Braun. But the explosive nature of it seems hard on the old bicep tendons.

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I've had a bit of a summer cold the last few days and had been dragging, but I felt much better today. I'm extremely happy that Lebo has changed its hours and will be open all next week for adult swim. That will save me a lot of driving to Sewickley. And I am back to coaching next week after a two week layoff. I miss my swimmers!

*This was tough, I was way stiffer on this set than when I did it earlier in the week, backstroke just felt labored and not at all smooth, so I had a hard time making the intervals.
**Been a while since I've done a pyramid; tried to hold that 1:20/100 pace throughout, but the 75s were around 1:01 and the 100s came in at 1:22. Again, just feeling a bit off today. Maybe it was the altitude up there on top of figurative mountain.

I got some some more hypoxic training on my 20 mile bike ride down to the inlet and back. Every time I passed road work or building constructions or guys blowing cut grass into the street I held my breath.

Then I went down to the Gulf. It was flat as a pancake. I swam from one high rise and back to another equaling a mile. Saw thousands of minnows and one striped fish about 2 feet long. I kept my eyes out on the horizon for triangles, after all it was shark week recently and there might be a few straggler still celebrating. Not even a jib and a main sail triangle in sight. No motor boats, either…quiet.

I am nervous about the postal swim on Sunday. Its been a few years since I swam a 5k, but I also look forward to the camaraderie. It should be fun.

Swimming LCM400 free with snorkel6x50 catchup on :504x100 with paddles on 1:308x25 open,close, easy, fast on 1min with fins200 easy

I felt like jello when I dove in today. The abs were hard and I still felt Tuesday on the first round today. Its amazing how a really good long taper brings your fitness level down. It takes so long to build up fitness but so little time to loose it. Hopefully a couple of weeks and I will be back to normal.

I finally made an appointment to see an orthopedic doctor earlier this week but could not get in until the middle of September. The particular doctor I choose came recommended and as it turns out is the orthopedic doctor for the Dallas Cowboys. One of my team mates worked with him on a shoulder issue and he said he is awesome; very thorough. My right knee still hurts but not as bad as it was going into the taper. If I want to get the swelling up it will take one leg workout. Don't know if I should deliberately enclave it by doing what hurts or just let it be what it is with no pain. I suspect the later makes most sense! I always worry when I go to see a doctor they will not see the problem.

I had another good night of sleep and headed to the pool hoping for another LCM workout but alas it looks like we are done with Long course for the year. Tom did say there was talk about switching it at weekends but I have heard that before and it did not happen. Oh well, it is what it is!

I felt pretty whacked after the kick set but did great holding 2:43-2:45. I was not anticipating 16x50s and mentally decided to swim them as 4 rounds of 4 increasing my effort as I went through the set. I started out with a :25 which shocked me. I then proceeded to hold :26s until the last 50 where I went :25 again. I did not feel that great at the end but that's the best I have done on this set. Very happy!

I am taking my USAS coaching certificate tomorrow and have been working on the online portion the last couple of nights. I am really looking forward to getting my certs and I spoke to my wife about coaching one of the kids groups this season. I have a lot of upcoming travel but tom said he would appreciate the help so I am going to try coaching the kids in one of the groups as my schedule permits. I have about a month of travel already planned so I will be hit and miss to start with but will try to plan my travel around the coaching. I hope it works and as long as the kids are ok with me helping out I think it will be great fun. Watch this space!

Tuesday was a bit of a lost day for me. I was awoken by thunder storms at 5:00 am and couldn't get back to sleep. This wouldn't faze some folks, like Stewart. But when you're a night owl, it's brutal. All I could do was take my dog on a long walk.

I went to a 75 minute class, but it ended up being more. It was extremely toasty and suffered bc of it.

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Going to keep going to Lebo, which is the only pool available this week. Next week, the only pool that I have access to is Sewickly unless I go to adult swim at night at Lebo. But 8:15 is not a convenient time, and a bit late to work out as well.

Matt was finishing up a set (he's planning to hit up Nationals in the spring), and Kevin was also there. Not too much traffic in the pool.

Hot and humid here in VT. Last week I preformed the marriage ceremony of my sister-in-law and her fiancé and dropped off the paperwork today. I also paid for the class that I will audit this fall at the Bible College, a Christian Counseling class called Spiritual Formation. The other classes held on Thursday nights do not really apply to me so I went with this one. Only two books, and I was able to get one as an ebook so I will be all set for the third year of the college!

Today I got up early and headed to the Y at about 5:30; trying to get my schedule back on track since I'm going to have to start getting to work at a normal time toward the end of the week. But this year I'm determined not to put my swims off until after work... I have such low energy in the evenings. So early morning it is!

I was still a little groggy when I pulled up at the Y, but my warm-up felt fairly normal. Then I went into 2500-worth of hard swimming. The 25s and 50s didn't feel nearly as smooth as last week, but until I get acclimated to the time and build my base a little I can't complain... I'm still forcing my body to swim a lot faster than when I do 100s and 200s.

No wonder I'm a little tired. I was thinking that I swam about 19,000 in 4 days (4600 on Friday, 5000 on Saturday, 5600 on Sunday, and 4100 Monday) but then when I went to log it in, I noticed I also had swum on Thursday (3000) and for a short while on Wednesday (got rained out at 1250).
It was my birthday this weekend, and I did my usual 100 for every year. I think I'm going to have to get younger or start doing 50's or 75s per year soon. 5600 solo was ruff - but the water was cool, and the sky was beautiful. Same on Saturday, but not AS cool, and I wasn't swimming solo, so it went by much faster.
Anyway, for the birthday swim I just did
600 warm-up
500, then 5 x 100 -- each various ways, including 5 x 100 IM's, and 10 x 50 fly/free - until I reached 5600 - or maybe 6100, I kinda lost track of my 500's after a while.
Worked a very long day yesterday with my day job & moonlighting in the ER, so didn't get home until 11:30pm. Felt wonderful to sleep in this morning.

After the after meet party my wife and I went to watch the movie "the man from Uncle". It was a pretty easy movie to watch and was good(not great). I was pretty beat after the meet and was not really in the movie mood and when the lights went down I struggled to keep my eyes open. The movie was entertaining enough I did not sleep but I was struggling in a few spots. I slept well last night but woke quite sore. The no warm down after the meet probably contributed. This morning the pool was setup LCM. I suspect our long course days are numbered unfortunately.

Today i I had a meeting at work at 7:30 and had to get out a little early.

Warm up
400 free with snorkel
6x50 catchup on 1min

Main sets
8x200 pull on 3mins descend 1-4,5-8
10x50 drill working on breathing after the catch on 1min
2x100 kick

warm down
100 easy

I felt good on the pull set and descended from 2:20 to 2:12 and felt long and tapered. Oh how I love the feel when you come off a big meet and are rested and shaved. It's so unfortunate that this feeling does not last. The drill was interesting; Tom said he wanted us to work on a slightly later breath after the catch. I have never noticed a pause in my stroke but he said he saw one today. The kick should have been 6 rounds but I ran out of time. I made it downtown for my meeting by the smallest of margins,mouth I did make it.

Tonight i started my USAS coaching certification and worked on the online course. It was a lot of common sense stuff so far but it was good to hear. I need to finish this tomorrow since the water portion is on Thursday.

I am am back to crazy abs in the morning but will build back into it so hopefully I won't be too sore tomorrow.

-- After attempting to do some 100 pace work early on, I decided I was still too tired to do any sprinting and went into recovery mode. I haven't yet shaken off the fatigue from overdoing it with the weights, etc.

I felt tired in the pool again this am, but pepped up this afternoon and went to the gym. I only stayed 50 minutes instead of the 70 I did last time. I think that works much better or me as I'm building strength again. Looking at my blog, I am substantially weaker than I was back in 2012. Lots of injuries (labral tear, elbow tear, subscap tear, broken finger) have impeded any forward progress. I really hope I can stay healthy and injury free for awhile. With Lil Fort now in high school, I should also have more time to do things like rehab exercises, stretching and yoga than I have in prior years.